I took the plunge yesterday and bought the "Complete Solution" Miniature Mentor video.  I must admit I'm very impressed with it.  The camera work is excellent and the quality of the painting is top notch.  I've actually downloaded it and burned it onto 3 DVD's myself, as to be honest I dislike ordering very much from abroad - I also disliked the fact that it would cost me an extra $20 (or £11ish for me).  I know that its 4 hours in total, but the cost of a DVD, burning and a box $20 seems quite steep.  But anyhow, using regular 4Gb DVD's is OK :) More -->

Right for those who don't know what this is about Miniature Mentor have made a number of videos of good miniatures painters, demonstrating techniques.  The "Complete Solution" has Laurent Esposito painting a Wolfen model.  It goes over numerous techniques both basic and more advanced.  I am a very visual learner and actually seeing somebody doing techniques that I've only read about is actually worth the money for the video.

I do have a few gripes though.  First off, as you might tell from the painters name, he's French and its obvious that his first language isn't English.  Numerous times his running commentary isn't sentanced as in 'true' English, so you can get the wrong end of the stick.  The American videoer tries his best but once or twice I felt it just got confusing.  Also at one point the videoer gets completely confused between scorched and bestial brown so goodness only knows what colour is actually being used.  The trouble is that it just makes the commentators come across very badly as well as confusing the viewer, who could be a beginner.  Now what I think should have happened is that they should have done a voice over, that way they could have worked out exactly what they wanted to say, and the right words, giving the excellent visual part that professional edge.  This would have also got rid of all of the annoying cars that you could occassionally hear...

That said, this is probably my only gripe with the whole thing, and I'd personally be more than happy to purchase other videos from Miniature Mentor.

As I said earlier, I'm a visual learner, but for anybody who really wants to see what layering is about (for example) this or something similar is a must have.  I always thought that I took too long when painting something, but in reality I don't actually take long enough.  I now know that the mistake I make is in thinking that my paint isn't thick enough or thinking that I need to do 8 minutely different shades in a highlight.  I'm going to watch it all over again (especially as its almost mightnight now) and hopefully this will allow me to up my game a little bit.  I'm also amazed at how good a miniature can look with a well applied basecoat!